Germany suspends nuclear plant extension

BERLIN (AP) — Germany's government on Monday temporarily halted plans to extend the life of its nuclear power plants, as two hydrogen explosions at a tsunami-stricken Japanese facility spread jitters about atomic energy safety in Europe.

Neighboring Switzerland suspended its plans to build and replace nuclear plants and Austria's environment minister called for atomic stress tests to make sure Europe's nuclear facilities are "earthquake-proof."

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said a decision last year to extend the life of the country's 17 nuclear power stations would be suspended for three months.

"During the moratorium, we will examine how we can accelerate the road to the age of renewable energy," Merkel said.

Monday's decision also means that two older nuclear power plants will be taken off the grid shortly — at least for now — pending a full safety investigation in the wake of the explosions at a nuclear plant in Japan, Merkel told reporters.

The announcement, which came ahead of three German state elections in the next two weeks, fell short of opposition calls to scrap the extension of the plants' lifetimes altogether.

A previous government decided a decade ago to shut all 17 German nuclear plants by 2021 but Merkel's administration last year moved to extend their lives by an average 12 years.

Merkel says Germany needs to keep using nuclear power for now to keep energy affordable as it switches over to renewable power sources, and to ensure it isn't dependent on importing nuclear energy from other countries where safety standards might be lower than those in Germany.

However, the events in Japan "teach us that risks that were considered absolutely improbable are in fact not completely improbable," Merkel said.

View full sizeNTV/NNN Japan / AP PhotoIn this image made off Japan's NTV/NNN Japan television footage, smoke ascends from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant's Unit 3 in Okumamachi, Fukushima Prefecture, northern Japan, Monday, March 14, 2011. The second hydrogen explosion in three days rocked Japan's stricken nuclear plant Monday, sending a massive column of smoke into the air and wounding 11 workers.